Early Risers.

[PhilJ W]

6 hours ago, simontaylor484 said:

I have seen those new fire ladders on the internet 64 m tall. Quite an impressive piece of kit.

I wonder if they are mounted on a rigid body or an articulated trailer or are they like those American long ladder trucks where they have a rear steering cabin over the back axle.

I think they were £1.5 million each

I wouldn't fancy steering one of those trailers. All you control is the steering, no brakes or any other way of controlling speed. And the way that they 'crab' between lanes takes a lot of skill.

 

If your not careful you could easily take out a whole line of traffic.

Edited November 5, 2021 by PhilJ W

[New Haven Neil]

@polybear Yes, or 50% yes anyway - the pain one one side of the joint (or bursa as it turns out) appears to be diminishing, hooray well done - however, he dissed the issue on the groin side, which I think is something to do with anchors that were put in to hold the remains of the cartilage in place 9 years ago - something has 'pinged' in there most painfully and is not resolving, but he just didn't want to know about that.  I will be taking this up at the next consultation, with higher authority if necessary, or even with the hospital in Wrightington (Centre of excellence for hip surgery) where the surgery was undertaken originally.

 

The flare iD talked about has now become much smaller but more dense and rather painful to the touch, hopefully this will continue to reduce and fade.  Not done much walking on it yet though and am tapering off the anti-inflammatories to see what happens.

[Coombe Barton]

... and music for the day ...

 

https://johncolby.wordpress.com/2021/11/05/sound-of-silence/

[Adam88]

58 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

I wouldn't fancy steering one of those trailers. All you control is the steering, no brakes or any other way of controlling speed. And the way that they 'crab' between lanes takes a lot of skill.

 

If your not careful you could easily take out a whole line of traffic.

 

That reminds me of the conversation between fore and aft hydroplane operators recounted by Richard Compton-Hall in one of his books about early submarines:

 

"My ends going down, what's your end doing?"

 

[TheSignalEngineer]

Evening Awl,

 

Not much time around the site this week as a lot of painting needs doing. How many spindles is it possible to incorporate into a single staircase? 

Sympathetic thoughts to all those struggling with various ailments. Mrs SE regularly has foot problems at this time of year through to around March. They seem a total mystery to the NHS so she has had several tests recently but all have been close to expected norms. The answer seems to be in self management of the problem by using her favourite anointing goo and keeping them warm to ward off circulation problems.

Tomorrow I have Day Release. She has two sessions of tennis arranged and Grandson has no football so he thinks it would be a good idea to ride the shiny metal strips for a bit of watching of noisy machines moving on them.

Think it's time to get the cameras charged up and a bit of eyelid inspection ready for an early start.

[Gwiwer]

Evening all.

 

Just popping in to record a safe return to the Hill of Strawberries.  Slightly early to boot.  

 

Having set off at 09.15 I projected a 10-hour trip which included lunch with friends and two other stops of more than a few minutes; PSV "driving hours" and the need for rest breaks remains firmly in mind.  We came via Lostwithiel (for a slightly early lunch) then the A38 rather than a fussy back-track onto the A30.  From Exeter it was straight up the M5 / M4 rather than the shorter A303 route which is marginally harder on the driver.  

 

I pulled into the car park, applied the handbrake and switched off the engine at 19.14:57.  After around 375 miles, several stops and with no control over other traffic I was just three seconds early on my estimate!  

 

We enjoyed the firework display put on by the local primary school (for the benefit of all residents, not just kids and parents) which was as spectacular as it was noisy.  I like a good firework show but I'm glad I wasn't a pet and hope His Pawsship wasn't distressed by similar events.  We collect him in the morning.  

 

The Little Red Driving Box behaved impeccably and I quickly adapted my driving technique to allow for the small (997cc) engine not allowing for powerful acceleration nor sparkling hill-climbing.  A gear down from usual in a few places and discretion when thinking about overtaking or pulling into traffic and all was well.  

 

So now it's off to bed for a weary driver.  Unpacking and laundry can wait for the morning.  

[laurenceb]

My friend Chris the book is on the Somme and it's a lot quieter than here. Still bangin away.

[TheQ]

Evening Awl, inner Temple Hare,

Ben has arrived had his bit of cheese but instead of the disappearing down stairs he's settled down beside me.

Little sound of the Somme here, but approaching the MRC on the main A149 someone's bonfire is just a fence away from the road and the smoke is drifting across the carriageway.

 

This week I've been mostly painting.. the LSWR salmon pink was ...... Pink, comparing it to the colours on the website that recommended it I reckon the man is colour blind, two very different colours, any way I've mixed it with some sand yellow and painted the items, if it stays as it is when wet then coat two will need some white to tone it down a bit.

Other than that I've been a fencing contractor and casting cobbles...

Ben the Insulted Collie has just given me a look of distain because I typed on this, ignoring him, so upped and left.

 

Time for choccy then good night Awl.

 

[Erichill16]

Evening All,

Not much of a day, in fact not much of a week. Managed to get the second Vat return completed this morning and went with SWMBO to Sheffield to the dentist this afternoon and there you have it.

Fell asleep after tea and just woke up. Not to worry I’ve not missed doing anything.

Hope everyone has a splendid weekend.

goodnight 

Robert

[laurenceb]

9 hours ago, simontaylor484 said:

Our local Tescos does the same 2 mornings a week they dim the lights and turn the volume of the music down. Trouble is its a Wednesday and Saturday 0900-1000 so it's rare I benefit from it with our Boys

Tick boxing, round here if they do it it's at some silly time of day.

[tigerburnie]

G'night all

[monkeysarefun]

15 hours ago, tigerburnie said:

 he also had a real fear of spiders....his thinking was if he could feed and look after this then house spiders would no longer be a problem

Taronga zoo here in Sydney runs a  free one-day spider and reptile desensitising course using experts and a hypnotherapist. They guarantee it'll work and apparently have a 100% success rate, participants begin the day freaking out at daddy long legs and end it happily letting a 5 inch huntsman crawl up their arm.

 

The hard bit is getting people to turn up in the first place.

 

I've thought of doing it but decided I don't need that level of comfort, I can quite happily coax one into a Chinese takeaway container and carry it  outside which is all I need to do. The only time it might have come in handy is the few times  when the takeaway container wasn't big enough and I had to empty out the lettuce crisper instead. Would have been easier to let it run up my arm.

 

I often see reasonable sized huntsman spiders when waiting in traffic, they'll wander out from somewhere under the car in front and climb across the back window or even better slide into the gap around the rear boot or hatch.

 

I always give those cars extra distance cos they are quite likely to do something nutty like hit the brakes in panic  if they spot the spider - unless they've done that course I guess.

 

They love riding in cars especially on the back of the sun visor - that's their favourite trick.  There you are driving along  and "Ohh the sun is in my eyes  - I know I'll put down the visor" and there's a 5 inch spider on the back of it right in your face. Funny as.

 

They are apparently responsible for a reasonable number of traffic accidents each year as people react to sudden appearance of huge spider in their car, either hitting the brakes or running into the car in front.

 

Given that, it makes me wonder how many  fatal car into tree or car over cliff or even head-on  accidents here have been caused by them. Although non venomous, now that I think about it  they may in fact kill more people each year than all our other deadly animals. Except for  the horses of course, those psychopaths.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 6, 2021 by monkeysarefun

[laurenceb]

Night awl

[PhilJ W]

Goodnight all.

[BSW01]

Good evening everyone 

 

I spoke too soon this morning, within a few minutes of my post, it started to drizzle, by 11 o’clock it was proper rain. Luckily, I didn’t get wet this week when walking back to the car at the Trafford Centre, as it had stopped then. 

 

Sheila had her booster jab this afternoon and that’s about as exciting as today has been. 

 

Fireworks have been going off nearly all night, but thankfully, they seem to have stopped now. 

[BSW01]

Goodnight all 

[zarniwhoop]

A much reduced amount of fireworks around here, compared to normal times, but some of the rockets were most impressive (several trails of lights spread out as if radii of a dome, with different colours at different heights).

 

Very jazzy.  Mmm, nice.

[J. S. Bach]

Night owl from Springfield, OH.

[chrisf]

Greetings

 

I too had my booster jab yesterday.  The production line was most efficient.  A few fellow recipients of jabs were kind enough to admire my face mask, not because it covers my face but because of its rainbow motif.  Today I need to make a swift trip to the supermarket to procure what I forgot last time.  All hail the forgettery!

 

Best wishes to all

 

Chris

[iL Dottore]

Good morning all,

Fairly reasonable night (again on the sofa, but Hey Ho).

 

A busy morning awaits: but first I have to activate the bear traps and hippo traps because this morning I will be in the kitchen baking:

• A Manchester tart.
• A Victoria sponge with buttercream and blackberry jam filling.
• Sausage rolls.

I need to make sure that the area around the Alpine Redoubt™ is secured and there is no possibility of any ursine snaffling of cake. Mrs iD is returning this afternoon and she expects cake, so cake must be protected and provided (although Captain Cynical is tempted to turn off the defences and let polybear waltz away with the goodies and then inform The Alpine Angel of Death as to who nicked the patisserie, then sit back and enjoy the ensuing mayhem)

 

And after my stint in the kitchen, I will play around with my new Harley Benton CST 24T

 

Enjoy Saturday

Edited November 6, 2021 by iL Dottore
Typo

[Barry O]

Ey up!

Her indoors had volunteered to take a fellow volunteer to catch a coach to see a kickball match today. She didn't tell me that she had to be up at 05:30 to do this little bit of volunteering..pah!

 

Ed Cold has now become chest cold with coughs and sneezes added in.. PAH!

 

Don't have a problem with spiders.. just don't  like snakes..

 

If I can get up the enthusiasm I need to make some small items dirty. We shall see...

 

Stay safe!

Have as good a day as you can!

 

Baz

[jamie92208]

Good moaning from a quiet Charente.  No fireworks here last night. Bonfires have been banned on environmental  grounds.

 

I went to see the quack yesterday for my regular 3 monthly prescription.  I was informed that I don't need a Covid booster, having had the lurgi in August. Just fly jabs next Friday.  In the afternoon  I trimmed the front hedge then spent an hour putting the new shed roof together. I even checked the diagonals and got them to be within 1mm of each other before I finally tightened  all the little screws.

 

Today we will be ringing the girls and talking to young Emily as usual, then who knows what tasks will be allocated.

 

Regards to all.

 

Jamie

[Andrew P]

1 hour ago, iL Dottore said:

Good morning all,

Fairly reasonable night (again on the sofa, but Hey Ho).

 

A busy morning awaits: but first I have to activate the bear traps and hippo traps because this morning I will be in the kitchen baking:

• A Manchester tart.
• A Victoria sponge with buttercream and blackberry jam filling.
• Sausage rolls.

I need to make sure that the area around the Alpine Redoubt™ is secured and there is no possibility of any ursine snaffling of cake. Mrs iD is returning this afternoon and she expects cake, so cake must be protected and provided (although Captain Cynical is tempted to turn off the defences and let polybear waltz away with the goodies and then inform The Alpine Angel of Death as to who nicked the patisserie, then sit back and enjoy the ensuing mayhem)

 

And after my stint in the kitchen, I will play around with my new Harley Benton CST 24T

 

Enjoy Saturday

Any pics of the HB yet? I have scanned back through, but unless I've missed it, I'd love to see it.

[iL Dottore]

1 minute ago, Andrew P said:

Any pics of the HB yet? I have scanned back through, but unless I've missed it, I'd love to see it.

Not yet. They’ll be coming soon.

[iL Dottore]

Manchester Tart made, no sign of bears (yet?), phew!
Butter softening for this afternoons Victoria Sponge bake…